Online porn depicting choking to be banned in the UK

Pornography featuring strangulation or choking is to be made illegal in the UK under the Crime and Policing bill, which is currently going through parliament.

The possession and publication of such images would be made a “priority offence,” putting it on the same level as child sexual abuse and terrorism material, science and technology secretary Liz Kendall said.

“Viewing and sharing this kind of material online is not only deeply distressing, it is vile and dangerous,” she told the BBC. “Those who post or promote such content are contributing to a culture of violence and abuse that has no place in our society.”

Research has shown that young people are increasingly likely to choke or be choked during sex.

According to a YouGov poll, 27 per cent of men aged between 18 and 29 grasp their sexual partner’s throat during intercourse, and 33 per cent of women in the same age bracket said their sexual partner regularly did that to them.

A BBC survey in 2019 showed that 38 per cent of women aged 18 to 39 have been choked during sex.

A review into the effects of “degrading, violent and misogynistic” pornography, published in February, suggested that more than a quarter of the nation regularly accessed online porn, with a third of all men watching material at least once a week.

Conservative peer baroness Gabby Bertin, who headed the review, said the proliferation of such behaviour could have “devastating” consequences.

“You just have to go on the home pages of some of these mainstream sites and you will see all that degrading content, particularly violent towards women,” she added.

Calling for the banning of content depicting the non-fatal strangulation of women, the report cited an account of a 14-year-old boy who had asked a teacher how to choke girls during sex.

Fiona Mackenzie, the founder of We Can’t Consent To This, expressed scepticism that the amendments would prove effective, claiming that legislation that banned strangulation in pornography already existed but wasn’t being enforced.

“More than five years ago, young women told us that social media sold strangulation of women as normal, as an expression of passion,” she said. “The porn sites make this normal for men and none of those sites have ever felt the impact of the existing law.

“A change in law or practice is needed. It’s possible that this time the government might actually do something about this. However, until we see otherwise, I don’t believe any new law will actually be enforced.”

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